Too many medical machines beep producing false alarms

Tools

The growing problem of “alarm fatigue” is blamed for the death of a 60-year-old patient at UMass Memorial Medical Center, whose bedside alarms signaling possible heart and breathing problems went unanswered for an hour. His death was the second alarm fatigue fatality in four years at the Worcester, Mass., hospital. Medical safety experts warn that too many medical machines beep for attention, producing so many false alarms that hospital staffers cannot determine which ones are important.